Disentangle: When You've Lost Your Self in Someone Else

By Nancy L. Johnston

A revised edition of the best-selling solution-oriented guide to identifying and healing over-involvement or "entanglement" in relationships with other.

Anyone who has struggled with balancing his or her own needs and desires with those of the “other” person will benefit from Nancy Johnston's sensible, easy-to-follow method for changing the course of one's relationships. Disentangle combines psychoeducation, personal anecdotes, clinical case vignettes, and skills-building exercises.

Johnston describes how to turn this self-destructive cycle around with self-assessments and experiential exercises designed to address essential aspects of self-awareness, distortions in thinking, communication style and tools, and spirituality. “Disentangling” is the process of creating enough emotional space between oneself and another person in order to better see the realities of any relationship and make healthier conscious decisions about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Central Recovery Press
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781949481358

Book preview

PREFACE

This is the third Preface I have written for Disentangle—not because I can’t seem to get it right, but because this is the third phase of the life of this book that has taken root and keeps growing.

The seeds of Disentangle began in the mid-1990’s as a product of both personal and professional work. I was engaged in my own recovery program for loss of self in others, participating in therapy and a twelve-step fellowship. As I began to understand the dynamics of loss of self through my inside work, I noticed my clients were asking me questions about their growth that I could best answer with the skills I was learning. I started to see how we become entangled with others and lose our self in the process. Our mental health can be dramatically affected by this loss. A list of ideas for disentangling emerged as I saw this theme in my personal and clinical work. By 2003, that list became a self- published book. I offered workshops and presentations on the book. I made a few attempts to find a traditional publisher, but my full-time work as a mental health therapist was my priority. I did not have the time to work on submissions, and frankly, I just wanted to keep teaching and developing the material.

The second phase of Disentangle’s life evolved in the fall of 2009. I was in my office seeing clients and returning phone calls—a regular day. One of the calls was a client asking for information about the use of medications to treat addiction. I said I had just seen an article in a professional magazine on this topic and would find it and get back with them. I immediately did. In the process of looking through the magazine, I found an announcement about Central Recovery Treatment and specifically about Central Recovery Press. That press was news to me, great news! With some researching of Central Recovery Press and ultimately a submission to them, Disentangle was accepted for publication and released in 2011.

Over the years since then, I have continued to teach and develop the material in this book—presenting at conferences, teaching at workshops and weekend retreats, and using the insights and ideas in my clinical work. I practice what I write about on a daily basis and have learned more about my self and the challenges of acting on what I learn. I believe in this process of finding, cultivating, and caring for self. I believe it is possible and imperative for our health and our relationships to have a healthy self from which we operate. I also have continued to read and study new material in our fields of mental health and addiction, and those learnings find their way into the content of Disentangle.

In the spring of 2018, Central Recovery Press asked me to write a 2nd edition of Disentangle. I was so pleased! They knew I had new material for the book and had expanded the ways I understand and teach its content. And we all continue to believe strongly in the value of what it has to offer for self-recovery. The third phase of Disentangle’s life was taking form and has grown over these past two years as I have written it, offering at least fifty percent new material to you, the reader.

You may be wondering if this book is about codependence. It is, and more profoundly, it is about the fundamental issue of loss of self that is a core feature of codependence. The clinical dynamics of codependence are real, yet the word and its definition remain controversial and little research has yet been done on it. I suggest we not get stopped by the word codependence. I suggest that looking at loss of self in someone else is a useful way to understand what may be causing our anxiety, depression, addictions, and/ or relationship problems, and it points the way to clear, effective ways to recover our self and find balance within and without.

As you may notice, I am separating the word self from pronouns such as my and your. This is intentional. I want to emphasize the word self. It is what this book is about, and I am interested in helping the reader keep that word, that concept, that important reality in mind. Disentangle is about finding our self when we have lost it in someone else. It is about learning how to connect with our self and then knowing how to respond to it in ways that make us stronger, clearer, and more serene.

Throughout the book you will hear the voices of people who have been on this healing path and have shared their progress with me over many years. I’ve known them through counseling, workshops, weekend retreats, and twelve-step fellowships. They are of varied ages and walks of life. They are not named. They need not be named. They speak for many of us.

Interspersed throughout Disentangle you will find experiential exercises that provide valuable opportunities to practice applying the material to your life. I encourage you to complete these exercises in a separate journal. They will help you expand your awareness and build skills toward healthier relationships with others, and with your self.

Many people have been involved in my life and in the writing of this book, both directly and indirectly, and I cannot adequately acknowledge them all. So with deep gratitude, I say Thank you! to the dear souls who have spent time with me listening, reflecting, teaching, sharing, discussing, laughing, editing, and encouraging. You know who you are.

As for a book dedication, Disentangle is gratefully offered by me to each of you who want to make your life better by taking the time, energy, and courage to look at your self and by making changes that can center, clarify, and strengthen you as you live with and love people in your life. This book is not about changing them. It’s about changing you so that you can enjoy your relationships, your life, and especially your self.

May Disentangle and each of us keep growing.

Nancy L. Johnston

March, 2020

Every damn time I get in a relationship, I am no longer me.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST YOUR SELF IN SOMEONE ELSE

I’m losing who I was before I met her.

I’m not me when I’m around them.

I do not like who I am with him.

As years went on I slowly lost my identity. I gave up things I loved to do.

I don’t understand why I so readily gave up my self for them.

TANGLES

as described by various people along the way

I attach my self to the other person … that relationship is first and foremost.

The last eight years are a haze—like I didn’t exist in my own right.

When he left me, I was distraught in a major way and was helpless to know what to do.

It just wore me down.

He melts me. He has this sick hold on me.

I don’t know who the hell I am anymore.

I felt like I gave my self away.

I can’t seem to get back to me.

1

BY DEFINITION

Disentangle: To find your self when you are lost in someone else. To create emotional balance and centeredness within you so you can see the realities of your situation and make healthy decisions about it. To not necessarily leave/ divorce/end a relationship, but rather to cultivate a healthy self so you can then decide what to do for you and about the relationship in which you are entangled.

When we are emotionally overinvolved with another person, we lose our self and our way. Our thoughts focus on the other person, whether we want them to or not. We may justify these thoughts, believing that if we don’t worry about the other person, fix things for them, plan their lives, or do what they ask, things will be just terrible. Sometimes these thoughts become paralyzing. We can think of nothing else; we feel we must do something immediately to be in contact with the other person and impact their lives (and our lives of course, though we do not necessarily see this at first). We feel awful—nervous, anxious, and agitated. We set aside important work. We set aside important people. We set aside our self.

As the entanglements progress, we lose our way. Our interactions with the other person become more complicated, angrier, more frustrating, and confusing. We believe that more of this behavior, more trying to explain and resolve a given problem, will produce the results we desire. So, we continue on and on. And things just get worse. Everyone is upset; no one is getting what they think they want. We are entangled.

Entanglements can happen in various relationships. We may be entangled with our partner, our parents, our children, our bosses. We can become entangled with clerks in stores, with the call- center person handling our complaints, with the driver of the car beside us. An entanglement can occur with anyone when we lose our centeredness in our interactions with them. We don’t have to be related to the person, we don’t even have to know their name, to suddenly become emotionally attached to making our point, to defending our self, or to getting them to do something we think they should do. And often we can’t seem to let go of these thoughts and feelings. Our focus narrows, and our blood pressure rises.

This book is about how to stop the self-destructive process of entanglement, how to retrieve our self when we are sliding into an interpersonal tangle or, worse yet, are already caught in its web. It describes a process for people who want to break free emotionally from relationships that are unhealthy for them. This process has its roots in what we have learned about people living with addiction, and throughout the book I refer to this kinship with addiction. The issues present in relationships where addiction plays a role are often the same those living in other unhealthy relationships deal with. This includes people who:

•  Are dealing with codependency.

•  Are living with the addiction of someone else.

•  Are living with the chronic illness of someone else.

•  Are caregivers to children and/or to aging family members.

•  Are being emotionally or physically hurt in their relationships.

•  Are driven to fix others.

•  Want to get out of a relationship and don’t believe they can.

•  Feel they have to be in full control of everything.

•  Take care of others more than themselves.

•  Mold themselves according to how they think others want them to be.

•  Are unable to say no.

•  Focus more on the external than the internal.

This book is about how to apply the process of disentangling in our lives. While we describe entanglement as being lost in another person, we know we can become lost in any number of things, including work, parenting, technology, food, and spending. This book will help you understand loss of self in interpersonal relationships, and will teach you skills for disentangling which can be readily applied to other things in your life.

This book is itself a product of my own work to disentangle. It has developed as I have. I write from my personal history as well as my work as a mental health and addiction counselor. My personal journey brought me to these issues initially, and the substance of this book would be sorely impoverished, and somewhat dishonest, if I did not share that history first.

I would give anything to be the person he wants to be with.

2

SIXTY-SIX YEARS

I am now sixty-six years old. I have been consciously working on and with my self for several decades. When I am in good form, I experience the benefits of connection to my self, and operate in a responsive rather than a reactive way. Both my relationships and I benefit from a more centered, thought-full me. Serenity can be mine.

I have learned the skills discussed here over time, from the inside out, and it hasn’t always been easy. I believe, however, that sharing bits and pieces from my sixty-six years will enable me to explain this loss and finding of self with greater ease and deeper understanding.

The First Twenty-or-So Years

When I was in the seventh grade, I liked two boys, both of them the troublemakers of the class. They were cute and funny. They would call me up at night, and we’d be on the phone for hours, not saying much. I was so glad when they called. Though charmed by their rebelliousness and carefree behavior, I never got in trouble with them. They never asked me to. I just vicariously enjoyed their wildness, while I myself was a straight-A student and held class offices.

By ninth grade I’d started seeing the guy I would eventually marry. We dated all through high school and college. On a few occasions, we broke up. When this happened, I would go out with the notorious school troublemaker, who showed little to no respect for me but whose attention I deeply desired.

But my steady boyfriend was devoted to me. He worked hard and gave me nice things. For many years, it was safe for me to be with him. My family loved him, as did my high-school and college friends. He was a sociable guy with a good sense of humor. Dating him, I didn’t have to deal with the decisions, rejections, and disappointments of dating other people. I didn’t have to think about me, my values, my identity, or my beliefs; I was able to mindlessly be in a respectable and pleasing relationship. I thought I was happy.

We were married two years. As a husband he remained the fun-loving, generally attentive guy I had dated, and he offered comfort and companionship. I believe, however, that I was just not comfortable with the idea of being married. I was in grad school in those years and working in a psychiatric hospital. We lived in a townhouse in an urban area and had fun making it home. But I did not feel quite right with things.

My doubts about being married grew. Over time I came to see essential differences in the way my husband and I liked to spend time, in the company we kept, and in some of our values. We decided to end the marriage.

I had no idea then that I was working on finding my self. Looking back, I see that a voice in me, though it hardly knew the words, wanted me to know I could not simply keep following external expectations, whether real or imagined. I was living my life mindlessly, though if you’d asked me then I would have said I was focused and purposeful. I’d always been a successful student, worker, and daughter, someone who tried very hard to please many people and seemed to succeed at it. I was rarely in trouble. My life looked pretty good, and in many ways felt pretty good, as I reaped the benefits of my successes.

But inside, things were confused and unsettled. I needed to do something different.

I finished my master’s degree, and a new job took me to the Shenandoah Valley, about three hours from my childhood home. I knew I wanted to get out of the city and into the country; what I didn’t know was that I also wanted to get some physical space for my self.

It wasn’t until then that I realized how much I’d been influenced by my desire to please others. I cared so much about keeping my parents, my teachers, and my friends happy with me. I feared their disapproval and their anger. I hated having anyone mad at me; it meant feeling bad and wrong. I almost always tried to be good and to do things right.

Right meant doing things according to the books, according to spoken and unspoken shoulds. Right meant Do as I say. It certainly also meant being moral and ethical, of course, and I am comfortable with that. It’s just that my actions, my decisions and behaviors, were governed by watching that person I was trying to please, then selecting a response or course of action that seemed to be what they wanted. And I mean I literally watched. I watched their faces and their behaviors for clues about how I thought they were feeling toward me. I wanted to know what they wanted from me, what would please them, what would make them happy, what would keep them from being angry with me.

To begin my escape from this pattern, moved by the small, internal voice that said this would be something I would like to do, I came to live in the Valley. And I was blessed by my ability to do so.

One of the good things about that move was that it put me in a community in which I have been very happy for many decades.

Another was that I met the man who would become my second husband, to whom I am still married. It was my relationship with this man that at first led me to yet greater depths of lostness in the other, then subsequently to finding my way out.

The Second Twenty-or-So Years

During my first years here in the Shenandoah Valley, I frolicked in my insanity unknowingly. By day I worked as the counselor- of-delinquents; by night I took dance classes and acted in summer stock theater. I fixed up my home, socialized with new friends, and enjoyed my cats.

In many ways the times were good, just what I needed for autonomy and identity development. Granted, we know these tasks belong to the adolescent phase of development, but I didn’t really get around to them until my twenties. Prior to this I had appeared independent, but there was little independent thought and substance to me. I was driven by my need to please others, to avoid conflict, and, as my work supervisor described it, to be obsessively over-responsible.

I dated some men, and threw away one or two potentially good, loving relationships with seemingly stable men who cared about me. One in particular asked me to marry him, envisioning a lovely, festive wedding in our quaint community—this was more than I could bear. So, I left him for another. How he must have wondered what the hell was wrong with me! It has taken me a long time to figure that one out.

The man I left him for was the man who became my second husband. I was attracted to him the first time I met him. He’d stopped by my office inquiring where to go for the evening shift; he was a new temp in the building. I gave him the information he requested, and he went on his way. I wondered who he was and where he’d come from. I felt almost instantly ofi-balance.

Before long, I started to get to know him through mutual friends, learning bits and pieces here and there. He had come to this area to live with a friend for a while, had previously lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had worked in a psychiatric hospital in Boston, was thirty-seven years old, and had held twenty-five jobs. He liked to have a six-pack of cheap beer at the end the day.

To these facts I added all sorts